Personal touch kept restaurateur thriving in recession

10:37 PM,
Apr. 25, 2014

Gurubux Bhatia (right) is one of the owners of Indigo restaurant in Shreveport.

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Opening a restaurant in the middle of the Great Recession was a gamble, but Gurubux Bhatia already had been successful in New York City - so why not try northwest Louisiana?

"I didn't even know Shreveport existed on the map," said Bhatia, who's originally from India and immigrated to the Big Apple in 1988. He owns two restaurants there, both in Manhattan, the first of which opened in 1997.

"I never expected we would be landing here," said Bhatia, who ultimately established Indigo in 2007 on the site of now-defunct Utsav, an Indian-style restaurant he had originally come to town to do consulting ...